The Kardashians are one of the, if not biggest media personalities today. Kylie Jenner is particularly liked for her iconic Snapchat stories which let you in to the ‘secret’ and ‘amazing’ life of Kylie Jenner. However, Kylie’s online persona that she has created through the means of social media, is far from reality. No one is perfectly done up everyday, and her online persona somewhat sets an unrealistic expectation. Kylie Jenner herself said in her Snapchat story that she doesn’t show the world who the real Kylie Jenner is because is makes her feel vulnerable. Also because Kylie’s life is very much public, she feels that her personality is very sacred to her and that she want’s to keep her online self and her real self separate.

Creating your online persona is a bumpy process because you are unsure what you are happy to make public and what you want to keep private. A key component to creating a successful online persona is to maintaining a consistency across all social media platforms. You have to be the same ‘person’ on all of your social media platforms in order to gain the most followers and to have a successful online presence.

Kylie Jenner has to maintain her online persona as a young fashion icon who likes to where things out of the ordinary such as the iconic ways she changes her hair colour.

To prove exactly what I mean by Kylie’s online persona not being her but just her brand, I have made my own little parody based on her snapchat story. Enjoy!

(it’s all just for a laugh, if I offend anyone it isn’t my intention so please don’t take anything I say to heart xxxx)

Citizen Journalism is becoming a more recognised term within media today. However it faces many challenges due to the fact that people working in professional journalism refuse to view it as REAL journalism. They believe that these citizen journalists do not provide real news as they are ‘incapable’ of obtaining adequate evidence. Professional s journalists are constantly at war with the community because the professional journalists have dedicated their time and money to becoming a journalist, when there are people claiming the title with no educational background. And these ‘citizen journalists’ are also considered more influential than the professional journalists.

Citizen Journalism has grown from a few little blogs to a collective intelligence all due to the rise of social media and technology. Just the other day I was driving to uni and saw a car in flames, holding up traffic and by the time I got to uni I was able to search this particular incident on line whilst it was still happening. Citizen Journalists are just everyday people that are able to produce news that they perceive as important and what people want to hear. It’s such common place for people to purchase the daily newspaper only to skim through all of the news headlines that they have no interest in. With technology and citizen journalism the extents that news can reach is inconceivable.

People are engaged with citizen journalism and are their own citizen journalists because they see it as they are producing what the public want to hear or what the public care about. 20 years ago people weren’t concerned about what was going to be done about minor government decisions or whether or not a woman’s dog was found or not. But due to the rise in social media, it has become commonplace for people to post on community notice board pages about a robbery in a local street or where is the nicest place to get Mexican.

For example, The Camden and Narellan community notice board is a Facebook page created by locals to initiate an online community for the people that live in the Camden and Narellan community. It’s main aim is for local’s to communicate with each other about various things such as local deals with sports clubs, when local markets are on and about any crime happening in the area that people would like to know about. These pages are effective because it uses social media’s popularity to enhance communication within the community.

The rise of citizen journalism is an up and coming business and is slowly getting treated with the recognition that it deserves. Who knows, maybe one day there will no longer be journalism degrees.

To many of us music lovers, we sometimes love the remixed version of a song better than the original. Or we may not even know the original even exists. Never the less, remix culture is a strong commodity within the media community.

There are many YouTube videos on the internet that go through the step by step process of how artists remixed various different sounds and songs to create their own song. For example, artist The prodigy’s song ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ is a remix of many songs. These are all combined together to create a unique sound. This video is an example of the creation of the remix that is this song.

Meme’s are also an example of ‘Remix’ within today’s society. These memes are created from normal photos to then add text to create a whole new meaning. One of the most popular memes on the internet is the photo of Jean Wilder as Willy Wonka:

If you search ‘Willy Wonka meme’ in Google Images, this is what comes up and more. However, are remixes of songs and creating memes infringing copyright? When artists Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released their song ‘Blurred Lines’ in 2013, it became an instant hit. Climbing the iTunes charts quickly to number 1, however the more times that this summer hit was played on the radio, Marvin Gaye had decided to sue both Thicke and Williams for copyright. Marvin Gaye and his family believed that ‘Blurred Lines’ was very similar to his song ‘Got to Give it up’. However, when referring to the copyright act involving songs, one can only be legible to sue if the other song copied lyrics or snippets of the music, Gaye claimed that ‘Blurred Lines’ had the same ‘vibe’ as his song. In saying this, your initial reaction would be ‘Oh so, Robin Thicke and Pharrell won the case’, WRONG.

The jury sided with Marvin Gaye as they believed it infringed copyright due to similar vibe. This case is further elaborated in this article.

The ‘glitch’ is a digital and analog error which was a common occurrence due to a technological malfunction. Before technological advancements that lead to the LCD TV which now the glitch is not a common occurrence. However now people now view the glitch as an aesthetic component and have created “Glitch Art”.

Glitch Art is very popular within pop culture and is used when editing photos. Glitch art is also used to create a scary effect in certain videos which are called ‘wild glitches’. It is also considered a material transformation as the audience has changed their perception of it. Now that they are no longer plagued by the glitch on their tv screens its now viewed as a sacred piece of imagery. Glitch art is ambivalent, it confuses the relationship between signal and noise (Betancourt, 2012). Personally, I believe that ‘Glitch Art’ is considered ‘Art’ because when looking at the image it makes you think and question it. This art form makes you think about what the artist is trying to portray with its use of digital techniques. The Guardian has written a very informative piece on Glitch Art and how its weirdly wonderful and how it turns ordinary photos or videos into “visually arresting pieces”.

Glitch Art is a strange yet wonderful commodity to the artistic, pop culture world that we surround ourselves in. In a crooked world, its mystifying to gaze upon a piece of digital art that makes you seriously question its message.